Chinese quality and observations

[website]

Be careful of what you buy in China. Most everything here is either cheap, counterfeit, or both. Many things here are inexpensive, but you get what you pay for. I have bought nail clippers, belts, shoes, coats,

(ill-fitting) shirts, pens, lighters, a chair, a watch, a surge protector, a washing machine, speakers, clocks, batteries, pants, a necklace, and other things in China and they have ALL fallen apart after a few months. The worst thing is that you can't return the defective item. Even if an item only costs 1 RMB, what good is it if it doesn't work? It seems like it would less wasteful if products were designed to last longer. Phone, electricity, plumbing, and Internet services are not very reliable here, either. There must be a lack of ethics and well-educated engineers and marketers here. It's really amazing how bad the quality is China. It's strange that Chinese goods in the USA seem better. I think the bad quality goods are for the domestic market and the quality goods must be for the export market.

Other things that are shocking is the contrast of shirtless village idiots gawking with vacant , slack-jawed expressions, spitting, and squatting in front of sleek, high-tech skyscrapers. Lack of hygiene, no deodorant, poorly translated English, racism, and corruption are also shocking

things I don't think I'll ever get used to.

Sorry, just wanted to rant.

http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/jkrause/SWF/kanguolai.swf

[Quest]

nail clippers, belts, shoes, coats,

(ill-fitting) shirts, pens, lighters, a washing machine, speakers, clocks, batteries, pants, a necklace.

they have ALL fallen apart after a month

exaggeration...?

[Ian_Lee]

I guess the goods exported from China fall into 4-tier systems:

(1) Top Quality:

Exported to US, Europe, and Japan to fetch foriegn exchange dollars. Those commodities got to be in top quality because all those countries have very stringent consumer protection and can sue you to hell if somebody got hurted in using Chinese product;

(2) Above average quality:

Mainly exported to HK where you can find in the lowly-priced Chinese Merchandise Department Store.

(3) Average quality:

Widely available all over Mainland cities. Many are junk or faked but there are many good deals if you have the patience. I bought all the window curtains for my 15-window house @ US$200. In US, it probably costs US$8,000 (which also sounds absurd to me).

(4) Below average quality:

Found everywhere in Russian Far East, Vietnam, Myanmar or even Cuba. But since the consumers there don't have much expectation, most likely they don't mind fake or junk.

[niubi]

there is some high quality audio equipment being made in china. i am thinking about getting a shanling tube sacd/cd player and their tube monoblock amplifiers (at domestic chinese prices - definitely not going to pay the export rate).

[Yang Rui]

"Other things that are shocking is the contrast of shirtless village idiots gawking with vacant , slack-jawed expressions, spitting, and squatting in front of sleek, high-tech skyscrapers. Lack of hygiene, no deodorant, poorly translated English, racism, and corruption are also shocking

things I don't think I'll ever get used to"

If you don't like it, leave China. Or are you actually enjoying a much higher standard of living in China than you could in your own country, with much cheaper living costs? Of course, i don't know Website's situation but i'm fed up with people moaning about this kind of thing.

Why do people seem to demand perfection of China? Considering the history of the place, it's amazing they've got this far.

It's a poor country. For the last century, it's only had about twenty years of relative stability. Although it is getting richer, there is a gap in wealth between rural areas and the cities. That's why desperate people who are looking for a better life and a way of supporting their families (referred to by Website as "shirtless village idiots") go to the cities.

I'm surprised he finds the poorly translated English "shocking". Why should Chinese people write things in English? I wonder if Chinese visitors to English-speaking countries are as shocked as Website when they don't find any Chinese at all, let alone poorly translated Chinese. I doubt it. They probably just take it in their stride and 入乡随俗。

Corruption is a problem which affects native Chinese far more seriously than it affects foreigners.

As for "racism," i think most Chinese treat foreigners much better than their fellow Chinese. Ok, you might get the odd silly comment on the street, or get overcharged a few kuai in a taxi. But i think the warm welcome, friendliness, and kindness beyond the call of duty that most Chinese extend to foreigners far outweighs the odd "racist" incident. Plus, any racism shown by Chinese people to foreigners is balanced by the racism from expats towards Chinese people. Given the fact that most Chinese people work their a*ses off for a small wage, and many totally unqualified foreigners make big bucks teachinga few hours a week, I'm actually surprised there's not more resentment.

Take China as you find it. There's no point trying to build your own corner of wherever you come from in Beijing/Shenzhen or wherever. Although it can get frustrating sometimes, i think being a foreigner automatically guarantees you a better life than most Chinese, and you should be grateful you are not the one "squatting in front of sleek, high-tech skyscrapers"

[wushijiao]

I think part of this problem will start to go away when China:

1) Finally develops quality Chinese brands. Already there are many brands, but they haven't seemed to carve out identities in counsumers' minds, other than Haier and a few others.

2) Has aggresive consumer reporting, ie "Consumer Reports" in the US, talk radio and local news. Again, I think this has started, but I wonder how much offiicials tolerate a newspaper beating up on one of its cronies.

Other things that are shocking is the contrast of shirtless village idiots gawking with vacant , slack-jawed expressions, spitting, and squatting in front of sleek, high-tech skyscrapers.

Yeah, this is just something you have to get used to. You can make it positive though. Make a game out of how many times you get yelled at/laughed at going to wherever you go on a daily basis. In a suburb of Beijing, going to a restaurant ten minutes away, my record was 14!

[website]

I'm just curious, but I wonder how Asians being called gooks or

Arabs being called towelheads in the USA would feel by being told to be "go home" if they complained. Racism is wrong and being uneducated is not an excuse. Getting benefits from a host country doesn't mean foreigners should accept being treated like circus freaks.

Just yesterday, I was followed around a store by a sniggering, giggling store clerk who kept shouting "hello" at me for five minutes although I ignored him. I wonder why these Beavis and Butthead look-alikes ever get hired. I never saw American workers following Asians around stores while shouting "ni hao" in the USA. Are foreigners just expected to accept this moronic treatment? This kind of experience happens every day here and it's getting old.

[Claw]

I'm just curious, but I wonder how Asians being called gooks or

Arabs being called towelheads in the USA would feel by being told to be "go home" if they complained.

Where did anyone on this thread ever suggest that the Chinese used racial slurs?

Just yesterday, I was followed around a store by a sniggering, giggling store clerk who kept shouting "hello" at me for five minutes although I ignored him. I wonder why these Beavis and Butthead look-alikes ever get hired. I never saw American workers following Asians around stores while shouting "ni hao" in the USA. Are foreigners just expected to accept this moronic treatment? This kind of experience happens every day here and it's getting old.

Maybe if you just said hello back and kept walking they wouldn't have been that insistent? If someone in the US came up and said ni hao to me, I would probably just smile, say ni hao back to them, and that probably would have been the end of it.

[BeijingSlacker]

Hey, website, thats a sweeping generalization.

What about all the nice Chinese people on this forum whom you have been using as free translators and free tutors. They got NOTHING from answering the endless questions you have. Why not make a generalizaion saying Chinese people are kind and helpful.

Seriously man, I am tired of you.

[Lu]

Not much to add to Yang Rui's comments. China is not the west, deal with it. Or, if you can't, go home.

And as to the Hello-saying shopclerk, where I come from we greet back when someone greets us. It's called polite.

No wait, we were talking about Chinese things. True, most of the time it's cheap and worth no more than it costs. But I also bought pants and shirts there that I'm still wearing now, more than a year later.

[niubi]

here are a couple examples of high quality stuff china is making:

shanling scd-t200c sacd/cd player with both tube and solid state output stages, and tube headphone amp output

http://www.shanling.com/images/new/CD-T200C_4.jpg

shanling sp-80c monoblock tube amplifiers

http://www.shanling.com/images/Art/SP-80C01.jpg

[PollyWaffle]

website, please don't stop posting, you are the funniest dude on this forum!

[wushijiao]

I wouldn't be so harsh to jump on website. Many, many people say "hello" to be friendly, of course. And in general, Chinese people are the friendliest of any place I've traveled.

But an equal number say things to laugh at you, crack a joke with their friends, and usually say it as you are leaving earshot. It is fairly Bevis and Buttheadish, like a group of 13-year-olds yelling, "me so horny!" to an Asian woman in the US. No, they are not starting a conversation. No, they're not being friendly. They're being dicks. Blame it on whatever socio-economic factors that you will.

Maybe it's not appropriate to complain about this type of stuff on this forum, because that's not what this forum is about. But if I had an Asian-American friend in the US who was being harassed, I wouldn't give him the ol' , "dude, will you quit complaining about America? If you don't like it, you know where the boat is." lecture.

In any case, I wouldn't say that's it "racism" though. "Racism", in my definition of it, is when a majority group within a society uses unfair means to put down a minority group. The American social construction of race doesn't fit in China either. The mild harassment in China is annoying at times, but it's mainly harmless prankstrish fun. It's not really worthy of an "ism". But I know if I were from the countryside, I'd be staring and yelling at foreigners too!

[roddy]

I'd just like to thank Wushijiao for saying pretty much exactly what I think, and therefore saving me the trouble of typing it.

Maybe it's not appropriate to complain about this type of stuff on this forum

It''s perhaps slightly more appropriate in the practicalities forum, I don't know. I'll leave it here, as it'll save me a couple of mouse clicks. I can see the discussion going down a somewhat familiar road, but hey, as long as it's friendly(ish)

On the racism issue, as I've said I agree with Wushijiao - yes, it is behaviour based on race, but you are no longer in a culture where behavour based on race is taboo - how many Chinese people's education or upbringing even touches on the issue of race? I also think it's fair to say that this is behaviour stemming from ignorance and inexperience, not hatred - I think that's a distinction worth making, and I do feel that a blanket definition of racism isn't appropriate. I'm sure others will disagree.

As for the 'if you don't like it, go home' - on the one hand it's a slap in the face for anyone determined to make a life here, on the other it's sound advice. Life here does have it's downsides, and they aren't always easy to cope with - show me someone who doesn't want to turn round and start shouting when they get 'hellllllllllllooooooooooooooooo'd on a bad day, and I'll show you a better man (or woman) than me. If that, and all the other minor annoyances, started outweighing the advantages, then I'd probably start thinking about leaving - it's a factor, just like climate, the job market, cost of living, anything else. No point in being stubborn about it, I think.

Roddy

[website]

The problem with the "hellos" in China are that:

1) Not all foreigners in China speak English. How do Italians, Russians, Bulgarians, Brazilians, or Germans feel when Chinese shout "hello" at them? How would Japanese, Vietnamese, Thais, Koreans, or Cambodians in the USA feel if Americans shouted "Ni hao!" at them everyday? Not all white people speak English and not all Asians speak Chinese.

2) It happens constantly. I don't respond anymore to strangers shouting "hello", "gweilo", or "laowai" in China because it happens 10+ times a day and I feel like people are less interested in being friendly than acting like giggling, immature kids who get their jollies by harrassing foreigners.

3) I never see Chinese calling out "hello" or even "ni hao" to strangers. Being singled out, denied housing, or called "foreign devil" because of someone's national origin may not be be as bad as lynching, but it's racism just the same.

[Bob Dylan Thomas]

website, you poor victim of racism you, can you please justify your extremely offensive use of the phrase "shirtless village idiots"?

would you happen to be referring to someone who may only have had a few years of schooling in his/her entire life? Who may have subsided for much of his/her life on a daily wage less than what you might spend on a chocolate bar? someone who may then have been forced to desperately seek labour in the cities (along with close to 100million other migrants) after becoming a victim of economic upheaval - and then becoming a victim of exploitative labour gangs?

god, what f*cking idiots these people must be... let's just hope they aren't "mentally ill" or they might ruin your trip to China even more.

[krinkle]

website, you poor victim of racism you, can you please justify your extremely offensive use of the phrase "shirtless village idiots"?

i would like to hear this justification also